Gomez re­veals her kidney trans­plant

Selena Gomez re­cently re­ceived a kidney trans­plant from tele­vi­sion ac­tress Fran­cia Raisa due to her strug­gle with lu­pus, the ac­tress-singer re­vealed Thurs­day.

Gomez dis­closed in an In­sta­gram post con­firmed by her pub­li­cist that she has been some­what out of the spot­light this sum­mer be­cause she was re­cov­er­ing from the pro­ce­dure. The 25-year-old calls the trans­plant “what I needed to do for my over­all health.”

The post didn’t re­veal Gomez’s cur­rent con­di­tion or say where or when the pro­ce­dure took place. Gomez’s pub­li­cist de­clined to re­lease more in­for­ma­tion.

Gomez wrote “there aren’t words to de­scribe” how she can thank Raisa, who she says gave “the ul­ti­mate gift and sac­ri­fice by do­nat­ing her kidney.”

“I am in­cred­i­bly blessed,” she added.

The In­sta­gram post in­cludes a pic­ture of Gomez and Raisa hold­ing hands while ly­ing side by side in hos­pi­tal beds and another photo of a scar on Gomez’s ab­domen. The 29-year-old Raisa is best known for her role on the ABC Fam­ily se­ries “The Se­cret Life of the Amer­i­can Teenager.” Raisa’s for­mer pub­li­cist said she for­warded a re­quest for com­ment to Raisa on Thurs­day; it was not im­me­di­ately re­turned.

Gomez re­vealed her lu­pus di­ag­no­sis in 2015 and took a break from her ca­reer last year to deal with anx­i­ety, panic at­tacks and de­pres­sion stem­ming from her bat­tle with the dis­ease.

Lu­pus is an au­toim­mune dis­ease, where the body mis­tak­enly at­tacks its own tis­sues, some­times in­clud­ing the kid­neys. One healthy kidney is all the body needs, so a sin­gle kidney trans­plant can re­solve the prob­lem, said Dr. David Klassen, chief med­i­cal of­fi­cer for the United Net­work for Or­gan Shar­ing, which runs the na­tion’s trans­plant sys­tem.

Selena Gomez via AP

Selena Gomez (right) holds hands with ac­tress Fran­cia Raisa in a hos­pi­tal on an undis­closed date and lo­ca­tion. Gomez re­cently re­ceived a kidney trans­plant from Raisa due to her strug­gle with lu­pus, the ac­tress-singer re­vealed
Thurs­day.